Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Colnect 2013 was Fun - version 2014 is going to be so much more!

They say that the way you start a year, is the way it will be for the rest of it. If that saying has any truth to it, judging by the amount of activity and newly added improvements, it seems Colnect is getting ready for a blast of a year to come :)
Lottery Ticket "Happy New Year!"
So what did we have in this year of 2013?

This year must have gotten some good luck when we celebrated our catalogs reaching 1,111,111 collectibles, which is seven lucky numbers one. Since then almost 300,000 additional items have been published on the catalogs.

This year had many new categories joining, from Lottery Tickets to Medals, from Drink Labels to Video Games, and from a familiar game changing Functional Cards to a the sister catalog to Teabags - Tea Labels.
Drink Label "Kruger Pilsner", from the new catalog
The New Year 2014 is now expected to bring with it New Categories that were waiting in the wings to be launched. We will have the highly anticipated Sports Cards category, and also Paper Clips, Milk Cup Lids, Kids Meal Toys and Music CDs. Many more were already suggested and are sure to join in the upcoming year.

Functional Card "Happy New Year", from the new catalog
There could never be too many helpful features and additions. In everything having to do with collectors and Colnect, the more helpful tools is definitely the merrier. We've just now added some cool helpful hands to the Inventory Notes. That's not the only feature we've added though, we did much more throughout the year. We've opened up the Personal Customs lists to all, so you can put your collection any way you'd like. We parsed the seas and divided the collectibles into Continents. We've made it easy to find items through Face Value. We sped things up with Quick Filter options. We've diversified the catalogs with adding Variant support. We even put a looking glass right into the catalog and added a Zoom into the pictures.
Medal "Royal Military", from the new catalog
Each collectible category is unique and has it's own specific needs. Many categories got tweaked and improved, decorated and streamlined. You can see that on the Postcards category that finally had Theme Collectors give out a sigh of relief, Phonecards that has split in two, following much debate, and Hotel Key Cards that got a cool new Aggregation Feature added to it's catalog.

Our community kept reaching new heights, we have marked the occasion of having 56789 collectors on Colnect, and had the opportunity to thank the 666 contributors on Colnect making it a better place for collectors every day.
Tea Label "1 De Beste", on the new catalog
Finally, December ended on an especially heart warming note, when the wonderful Colnect Coordinators, were able to gift Free Premium Memberships to some 100 happy collectors.
Lottery Ticket "Happy New Year!", from the new catalog
Colnect has been preparing to welcome the New Year in style and festivities. It has been an eventful December, that will undoubtedly lead to an exciting January 2014, full of new features, new categories, more options and more collecting.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

666 Contributors on Colnect - Making Colnect a Reality

The number 666 has been demonized quite a lot throughout history. However we can remember that it is also the sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel and in that is Judaism 666 is the number which represents the creation of the world. For us on Colnect today this number represents the 666 contributors that make Colnect happen. These collectors, each with their time and collection, create extensive current collectible catalogs that are open to all and help translate Colnect to make it available in 62 languages.


The Colnect Contributors - the very beginning of the list :)
In March 2012 a 5 star system of contribution was introduced on Colnect and it seems it has been happily accepted by all Colnectors. The 5 star system allows Colnect to show it's acknowledgement of the help of the contributors and adds fun to the process.

Contributors on Colnect have helped it reach achievements such as cataloging over 1,111,111 collectible items. In the last month alone there have been over 20,000 collectible items added to the Colnect catalogs. 

Colnect started as a Phonecards database and since then has expanded to house 25 categories of collectible catalogs and growing, thanks to the good will and cooperation of collectors worldwide. Many new categories have been in the works for some time by dedicated collectors and many more are being suggested an discussed now on the New Categories forum.

We would like to thank all the contributors and wish them good luck and fun collecting! As always, we'll be happy to hear what you think, in the comments and on the forum, what do you think of the 5 star system? What do you think of the current catalogs?

Would like to become a contributor on Colnect too? Go to our Contribution Guidelines page. See you there :)

Thursday, October 31, 2013

56,789 Collectors now on Colnect!

It's always fun to see more and more collectors joining Colnect and participating in the community. Every day you can see more collectors from different countries swapping items, discussing collectible issues on the forums and suggesting useful new ideas, keeping the Colnect community vibrant, current and on it's toes.

In the last 3 months Colnect has reached 56,789 Collectors, an increase of  over 11 percent. That means over 6000 collectors have joined Colnect in the past 3 months, becoming members of the community and enriching it with their input, with their collections and their character.
"25 Rupees - Queen's Silver Jubilee" - Seychelles Coin, newly added on Colnect
It's truly beautiful and inspiring to see the cooperation between collectors on Colnect, from those who have been with Colnect since the beginning to brand new collectors. The more veteran Colnect collectors are happily reaching out to new ones with help and advice, creating new connections of collectible exchange and friendly relations, helping improve the catalogs and the website with their comments and remarks and more.
"Nissay" - Japanese Phonecard, newly added on Colnect
New items are constantly added to the Colnect catalogs, thanks to the wonderful contributors, editors and coordinators on Colnect. You can see some examples of them right here in this post. Some categories have reached new impressive achievements such as the Japanese Phonecards section that accumulated over 111,111 Japanese Phonecards, with much of it due to the dedicated work of the editor of Japanese Phonecards, Karl Heinz Degener [neizi].

"Peter Rabbit" - Japanese Phonecard, newly added on Colnect
There are also new categories that have been in the works for some time now. Those will be joining Colnect soon such as Sports Cards, CDs, Paper Clips and Milk cup lids. Many more great collectible category ideas are being suggested on and off the forums and we hope eventually we will be able to create a home for all of them.

A big thank you to all those devoted and enthusiastic collectors that are the beating heart of Colnect, both very active and very kind, from Coordinators, Editors, Translators and Contributors to all the Collectors on Colnect that swap, discuss, manage their collection and show much care and appreciation for Collecting.

"Famous Uruguayan Women - Nelly Goitino" - Uruguayan Stamp, newly added on Colnect
Would you like to know how you can contribute to the Colnect catalogs too? Have a look at our Catalog Contribution help page. Would like to suggest and create a new category you would like to see on Colnect? Post it on the New Categories forum.

"Vessel with flowers" - Japanese Phonecard, newly added on Colnect

Sunday, July 21, 2013

50,505 Collectors Now Connect on Colnect

It's always satisfying to see the Colnect community grow and reach another new level and a brand new number. It seems we have reached the 5th level of expansion and the number seems to be a lucky one for Colnect. Many new features joined the site and many older ones were improved.


Proudly marking another milestone, the Colnect community now consists of 50,505 enthusiastic and devoted collectors. Those collectors together, by contributing, editing, commenting, exchanging, discussing and browsing, bring Colnect alive as an interactive, attentive and strengthening organism. On Colnect we only count real members who validated their email address and logged in to Colnect. You can also quickly reach Active Collectors in any category of your liking and see their Personal Collection.

Colnect, as always, works to make the experience of touring through Colnect as fun, easy and intuitive as possible. One important change was the improvements made to the browsing process of the catalogs, which included new comfortable Filter Options, the Quick Filter box and a Continent Division in the country lists.
The new "Zoom In" feature, now available on all Colnect catalogs
The catalogs benefited from new Variant Items support, new Face Value lists and an easy-on-the-eyes "Zoom into pictures" feature. The management tools were enriched with Custom Personal Lists becoming available to all members and the personal profile pages were made more understandable thanks to a useful "Auto-Translate" icon. See the new features and let us know what you think!

Colnect also opened it's gates and it's API, inviting more collectors to show their programming skills with innovative, useful and fun new ideas for tools for collectors.

Spanish lottery ticket, newly added on the Colnect catalog
As always, more interesting new collectible categories have joined our ranks since our last milestone, and are now displaying beautiful catalogs already. Those categories are Lottery Tickets, Medals, Functional Cards, Drink Labels and Video Games. More exciting new categories are right now in the works, go see the New Categories forum to find out which they are and see their progress.

Bulgarian medal, newly added on the Colnect catalog
We would like to thank all the inspiring and inspired collectors, who with their passion, kindness, dedication and sense of community, all this has came to be. Thank you! :)

Friday, July 19, 2013

NEW and Pretty: Minor Visual Changes :)

It's always pleasant and pleasantly surprising to see the place you've visited many times spark-up and shine a little brighter. Lately, more than a few nice little visual changes have been made to make Colnect easier on the eyes and even put a smile on your face sometimes.

These little gems include:

< Nicer flowing hover over color movement over lists (try it out! hover over a list).

< Rounded Buttons.


< Red glowing warning sign on deactivated members profiles.


< Enlarged writing in some pages, for comfort, and many more changes.

< An elegant new pop-up language menu.

Go look for them now, let's see if you could find some more :)

We also did not forget all those who see Colnect without logging in. There are many new flashing, popping, changing, surprising little hidden boxes for non-logged-in visitors. Go ahead, log out and browse around and see what happens! Then log back in and tell us what you've found.

Little touches in design can often create a significant difference in the experience. Let us know what you think of the new design!

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Custom Personal Lists - Now Available to All Collectors!

We're happy to announce that the useful and comfortable feature of Custom Personal Lists is now available to all members of Colnect.

What are Custom Personal Lists?

In addition to the common inventory lists on Colnect (Collection / Swap / Wish), you can create custom personal lists to suit your needs. When custom lists are added, you can add and remove item to and from them in the same way you do for the common lists. Premium members can create up to 44 lists, each one with 10,000 items at most. Other members are limited to 2 lists, each one with 50 items at most. Read more about it here.

Custom Personal Lists can be Private or Public, according to your needs

In the past, the feature of Custom Personal Lists, has been available to Premium Members only. Now all Colnect members can try them out and enjoy.

Try it out and let us know what you think  :)

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Continent Division in Country Lists !NEW!

As part of the latest efforts to make the browsing of the Colnect catalog even more swift and intuitive, now all Country lists have been divided into Continents on quick on-page tabs, so you can rush past all irrelevant information on the way to your wanted collectible items.



As in all the other lists on Colnect, you can also use the Quick-Filter box. Just start typing into the yellow search box and see how the list quickly adjusts and shortens to include only options you may be interested in.

This continent division is, of course, optional and you can still view all countries in the regular list format if you prefer it.

Combined together these options make for not only fast searches, but also for convenient view of the Country List pages, with no scrolling down needed, just a click or a type.

Try it out now and let us know what you think! Come on, search for something... :)

Link and Search

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